Valentines Surprise
by Endaewen
Summary: Medieval Floral Challenge Response. He can't say it with words, at least not yet. One Shot. Complete.


**Title:** Valentines Surprise

**Fandom:** Forever Knight

**Note:** Challenge Response to the Medieval Flower Challenge

**Author:** Endaewen

**Rating:** G

**Disclaimer:** All characters and settings belong to their owners and creators. The information on medieval floral codes comes from the book Paint Your Own Illuminated Letters.

**Summary:** He can't say it with words, at least not yet.

_Valentines Day!_ It was going to be a long shift, and she hadn't even made it to the half-way point yet. Natalie's office was busy today and it was spilling over onto the night-shift crew. _Whatever happened to Valentines Day being a day to celebrate love? Right now it seems more like Toronto is celebrating love gone bad._ She was finishing up the report for a domestic abuse case that had gone too far, her second of the evening. Before this one there had been the aftermath of the fight at the club. _Not the Raven, thank goodness. I hope I don't have one of those tonight. This is bad enough._ The fight had left one person dead and had led to Natalie's being called on duty four hours early. _At least the cases are straight-forward, we have the perpetrators in custody. Drunkenness and jealousy. A bad combination. _ She shook her head at the waste of young lives.

The only bright spot in the evening so far was one that was giving Grace and just about everyone else on shift plenty to speculate and gossip about. It wasn't anything outrageous or even too unusual for Valentines Day, just a bouquet of flowers. Clearly though it was not an 'off-the-shelf' arrangement.

When Natalie got back from the scene of the fight it was waiting for her at the main desk, where everyone could see it and speculate. The arrangement was a mixed one, not simply the red roses traditional to the day, though they were present as well. However, most of the flowers were of other types, including the red and yellow tulips and pansies. There were a few flowers that the coroner didn't recognize, but she would be the first to admit that she was no expert on the topic.

Almost lost among the flowers was a card saying: _Natalie, may these flowers express my feelings for you._ That was all there was written on the card. No name or signature and the handwriting was unfamiliar. Natalie stood there for a moment, re-reading the card and contemplating the words before Grace saw her.

"So, who sent them? That's what we've all been wondering about since those beautiful flowers arrived," Grace asked eagerly. Natalie chuckled. From the looks of things, the office gossip mill had been going at high speed and they were now hoping for more tidbits. She didn't mind too much, at least when she wasn't the subject. It wasn't usually malicious. Still, her friendship with Detective Nick Knight was a common and popular topic of discussion both here and at the precinct. Sure enough, Grace's next question was "they're from Nick, aren't they?"

"I don't know who the flowers are from, Grace. The card is unsigned, and I don't recognize the handwriting. They're nice though," Natalie replied, showing her friend the card. "Do you know when they arrived?"

Still holding the card, the other woman answered. "About an hour ago. They were delivered by 'All Occasions Florists'." She added, "whoever sent them must have paid extra for that. It's long after normal closing hours." Currently, the clock on the wall behind the desk was showing ten o'clock.

The coroner stifled a yawn as she glanced at the clock. _Six more hours. Hopefully I won't end up doing overtime._ As it was, she'd been called in three hours early that night. The thought of work drove the puzzle of the flowers and card right out of her head. In fact, she was so list in her thoughts, she didn't hear her assistant's next words. "Sorry, what was that? I wasn't paying attention."

Grace repeated her question, amusement in her eyes. "Do you have any idea who sent the flowers?" _I guess she thought I was thinking about that instead of work._

"No, I don't. The inscription on the card is puzzling. At first glance, the assumption is that it means love, but it doesn't say that at all."

Grace looked at the card, reading it out loud: "'May these flowers express my feelings for you.' You're right. This is becoming more of a puzzle the more I read it."

"Well, whoever my secret admirer is, we'd better get back to work," Natalie finally said. However, she brought the flowers and card into her office where she could enjoy them for the rest of her shift. Her voice must have been somewhat short as Grace looked at her with surprise and asked if she was alright. "Just tired," she replied.

The coroner hadn't slept well for the past week or so, and, it seemed, it was beginning to show. She kept waking up from mostly unremembered bad dreams. All she remembered when she woke up were vague and fragmentary impressions that made no sense. White roses, cold eyes and harsh hands gripping her head and shoulders. She couldn't figure the dreams out, but they had been getting worse as Valentines Day drew closer. Natalie shook her head and turned to the never-ending pile of paperwork on her desk to pull her thoughts away from the strange dreams.

Instead, her eyes were caught by the flowers on her desk. Grace, and apparently most of the rest of the nightshift thought the flowers were from Nick. Natalie thought it was a possibility as well, but given the state of her relationship with the detective for the past year, she had her doubts. _Not to mention his vampiric nature. He keeps reminding me that it's not safe to get too close to him._

_I have no clue how he feels about me, if Nick sees me as only his doctor, his hope for a cure, or if I am his friend, or even if he sees me as more. Last year it was easier. I'd have sworn we were friends, possibly more. But then, about a year ago he became distant again, the way he was when we first met. I don't know why. Without knowing that, it's hard to know how I feel about him. Though, I'd like it if we became closer again._ She missed the casual visits, the discussions of almost any topic, though Nick was uncomfortable talking about much of his history.

Natalie had decided not to push the detective however, for fear that it would make him even more distant. Instead she would keep their friendship at whatever level he was comfortable with.

Eventually the coroner was able to put aside her musings on the state of her relationship with Nick and the puzzle of the flowers and card and get back to her work. At least, unlike the early part of her shift, there were no new cases for a while and she was able to work on paperwork for a couple of hours.

It was now past two in the morning and Natalie was working on paperwork again, having been interrupted by another call to a scene. Again the case was straightforward: a jealous spouse comes home to find their partner in bed with another. The only thing unusual about it was that the killer was the wife. _Valentines Day is supposed to be a day for love and happiness, not jealousy and violence. What's going on this year?_

She was staring at the flowers on the desk, an arrangement of mostly red and yellow, mixed with some other colours and greenery. Unusual for the day, given that most Valentines Day bouquets were comprised of some combination of red, white and pink flowers. Just staring, not thinking of anything when Detective Knight arrived to pick up some files.

"Busy night?" he asked as a greeting. He'd been on her last call, so he was probably hoping for some of the files to be ready.

"You need to ask?" Natalie's reply was friendly but sarcastic. She continued with: "Whatever happened to Valentines day being a time for romance and love?"

"I don't know, though people only really began to celebrated it in the last couple of centuries. Now, in many ways it's become a Hallmarks day." Natalie always found it fascinating, the little tidbits of historical knowledge that Nick would drop into conversations. They came from his eight centuries of life and experience.

"I heard the gossip in the halls. All everyone's talking about are the flowers you got. So, who sent them?"

"Not you too," Natalie groaned, but there was laughter in her voice and a twinkle in her eyes.

"You wouldn't believe the number of people who asked if I had sent them."

"Try me," she replied. "It's probably close to the number who asked me if you sent them."

Just then Grace came in, carrying a couple of brown envelopes. "I got the results for two of last week's cases back."

"Thanks, Grace." Natalie replied, then answered Nick's question. "I don't know who the flowers are from. There was no name on the card. All it says is : 'May these flowers express my feelings for you.' They are an unusual choice for Valentines Day, though," she added, looking at the flowers in question.

Nick frowned thoughtfully, looking between the card, which Natalie had handed to him after reading, and the flowers on her desk.

The third person in the room, Grace, took that moment to ask the question that had been occupying the gossip mill since the flowers had arrived earlier in the evening. "Nick, did you have anything to do with these flowers?"

Instead of answering her question, he said "I saw a show on T.V. about medieval heraldry a while ago. It had a section on symbolic meanings for flowers in it." Natalie shot the detective a sharp look, but he continued speaking without seeming to notice. "I don't remember a lot, but I do remember that apparently, tulips, roses and chrysanthemums," he touch each of the flowers in question gently as he spoke their names, "all had a connection to love." The three types of flowers he named were quite numerous in the arrangement, making up about half of the flowers.

_That answers who the flowers are from, I can't think of anyone else who would have heard of such a thing. At least not anyone I know. It's a good excuse for Grace though. So Nick Knight loves me._ As she thought that, Natalie asked about the other flowers.

"I don't know, but given the card, it is likely that they do have a meaning," was the detective's reply. With that, he changed the topic of conversation to work related questions. Soon enough, Grace left, citing work of her own as the reason.

Once she was gone, leaving the two alone in the room, Natalie asked Nick if he had sent the flowers. This time, unlike when Grace or anyone else had asked, he answered, rather than evading the question. "Guilty as charged." She thought there was a hint of laughter in his voice. "I had to let you know how I feel somehow." Natalie was certain she could see Nick's emotions in his eye, specifically, love, but she was worried that she was seeing what she was hoping for and not what was really there. "Today seemed as good a day as any other. I'd intended let you know last year, but other things got in the way. It wasn't safe after that," the vampire said, then added so quietly that Natalie almost couldn't hear his words, "it still isn't. And, yes the flowers are a part of that symbolic code I mentioned earlier," he changed the subject with a lighter tone of voice.

"So what do they mean?" Natalie asked. She was puzzled by what he had said about it not being safe, because she didn't remember anything happening the previous year, but went along with his change of subject. _It explains why he was so cool to me for most of the last year anyway,_ she thought.

"As I told you and Grace, tulips, roses and chrysanthemums all have a connection with love, but the colour of the flower was important as well, as it could completely change the meaning of the message. Just as they do today, red roses meant love. Red tulips are, specifically, a declaration of love." Again, as he spoke the names of the flowers, Nick touched one of the blossoms of that type. The red chrysanthemums say 'I love'," he continued. "Also, the red carnations," naming one of the other flowers she had recognized.

The next flower the vampiric detective pointed out was one of a number of pansies. "These send a direct message." Here he looked straight at Natalie, "I think of you always." As Nick said that, he removed one of the pansies from the arrangement and handed it to her. He looked back at the arrangement and touched one of the strands of ivy. "Ivy has several meanings, but the ones I intended for this arrangement were lasting friendship and fidelity." Nick explained the rest of the arrangement in a similar manner. Finally he came to the yellow tulips that made up such a large part of the bouquet.

"They symbolize hopeless love." There were a number of emotions in Nick's voice when he said that, but Natalie couldn't pick out any specific ones.

Before she could argue with his last statement, Nick continued. "There are a number of other flowers I'd have like to include in the arrangement, but the florist couldn't get them. For example, Forget-me-nots for true love, and pear blossoms, which are a wish for lasting friendship."

They continued to talk about the flowers for a few minutes more, before Nick had to go back to work. His final words to Natalie were: "I don't know where we can go from here, but I'd like to find out."

"So would I, Nick," Natalie replied as Nick turned to walk out of her office. As he turned, she could see the smile on his face.

The flowers used:

Yellow Tulips: Hopeless Love

Forget-me-nots: True Love

Pear Blossom: Lasting Friendship

Red Roses: Love

Red Chrysanthemums: Love

Red Tulips: A declaration of Love

Pansies: I Think of You Always

Ivy: Eternal Life (Not the meaning Nick would use), Fidelity, Lasting Friendship

The Medieval Floral Challenge:

Write a story where the symbolic meanings of flowers forms an important plot point


End file.
